Consumer broadband satellite services are gaining traction in North America with the start-up of star network services using Ka band satellites. While such first generation satellite systems may provide multi-gigabit per second (Gbps) per satellite overall capacity, the design of such systems inherently limits the number of customers that may be adequately served. Moreover, the fact that the capacity is split across numerous coverage areas further limits the bandwidth to each subscriber.
While existing designs have certain capacity limitations, the demand for such broadband services continues to grow. The past few years have seen strong advances in communications and processing technology. This underlying technology, in conjunction with selected novel upstream scheduling techniques, may be utilized for satellite communications systems and components configured to address this demand.